A basic theory of particle physics states that every atom in existence has already lived a life as a billion other things. Nothing – not a single particle in the universe – is new. So it’s entirely possible that the atoms you breathe have passed through the heart of a star, or the pee of a dinosaur.
Right at this second I’m staring at the mole on the side of Mr Grayson’s left nostril and wondering where exactly in the universe that has been. Does his mole share its atoms with one of Jupiter’s moons, or a prehistoric sloth, or a piece of ancient gypsum, or Euclid? Christ, is there a more depressing thought than that? One of the greatest mathematicians in history, and his atoms end up in the nostril-mole of a balding year-twelve biology teacher who, at this moment, is frowning at his laptop screen as if spellbound by the spinning wheel of death.
Why am I obsessing about nose-moles? Who knows. I’ve always assumed there’s some kind of rhyme or reason to my brain’s meanderings. But lately, I’ve started to suspect that most of the things I know are just, like, intellectual leftovers – gunk churning in the soup that is my cerebellum and bobbing up to the surface at arbitrary moments.
Mr Grayson is wrestling with YouTube, because evidently, learning about mitosis must involve an animation and a rockin’ soundtrack. The remnants of his lunch are perched on his desk; a sad triangle of cheese on rye and a banana, slick with bruises.
Fact: Bananas are naturally radioactive, containing potassium-40, a radioactive isotope of potassium.
Fact: Every human shares fifty per cent of their DNA with a banana. Elsie recently made me spend a Saturday watching an entire season of Dance Moms on Netflix. This fact? No longer so surprising.
Fact: The song ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas’, a hit in 1923, was inspired by a chronic Brazilian banana shortage.
Great – now that stupid song is stuck in my head.
Shut up shut up shut –
Under our desk, Elsie gives my wrist a quick, sharp tap. ‘Sophia. Stop. Freaking. Out,’ she murmurs. Her voice is that glass-calm she has taken to using on me lately, the sort of calm to which I’m sure potential ledge-jumpers are subjected.
‘I’m. Not. Freaking. Out,’ I murmur back.
Elsie’s deep-set eyes are almost imperceptible in the dim room, but I surmise that she is glaring at me with her no-nonsense stern face. ‘Yeah, you are. Close your eyes, Sophia. Breathe.’
Since my only options are to comply or endure another meditation session with her brother Colin, who has recently discovered the ‘art of mindfulness’, I do what she tells me. I close my eyes and concentrate on slowing the hammering in my chest.
Panic attacks – even the mild ones – suck balls.
Elsie’s hand hovers near mine until my breathing sort of returns to normal. Only then does she move away. I don’t know how she knows when to do this. When I open my eyes she winks at me and turns back to the smart board.
Mr Grayson has mercifully figured out the restart function on his MacBook, and the screen jerks to life – eukaryotic cells, accompanied by music that sounds like the death-throes of a defective Dalek. I breathe. And, involuntarily, I glance over my shoulder at the eighteen faces in the dark behind me.
There’s Margo Cantor and Jonathan Tran, gazing at each other with their strange moo-eyes, and Lucas Kelly, his school tie peeking through his open fly. In the back corner is the new guy, Damien Pagono, notable only for the fact that he is, once again, picking his nose with his pencil. Beside him is that dipshit who’s always smiling at himself. His head is bent over his books, a curtain of dark hair obscuring all but one pale cheekbone.
I flick my eyes back to the smart board. Mitosis. Hoorah.
I’m not a prodigy – not in the true sense of the word. I didn’t solve the Riemann hypothesis when I was a foetus or write symphonies when I was two or anything. But I could read before I could walk. And I understand numbers like I’ve been told other people understand regular language. I have no idea what my IQ is because my parents never wanted it tested. And frankly, I’ve never been that desperate to know.
In the words of my mum, I am ‘just a bit sharp’, not ‘special’ or ‘different’.
In the words of Matt Smith, my favourite Doctor Who Doctor, ‘I think a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track.’
But, here’s the thing – for every Former Child Genius who’s attempting to cure cancer or build an intelligent sex-bot or whatever, there’s another one living under a bridge, talking to their shoes and eating their own toenails. For every young prodigy winning a Nobel Prize or a Fields Medal, there are a dozen others who’ve sunk into nothingness, their promise evaporating like those has-been celebrities Mum likes to read about in Who Weekly.
And then, of course, there is my very favourite brilliant burnout.
Grigori Perelman should be, like, a maths superhero. He should be living in a Russian penthouse with a gaggle of supermodels, or whatever it is that famous boys are supposed to dream of. He figured out the frigging Poincaré conjecture – the first person in history to solve this supposedly unsolvable problem. The Poincaré conjecture helped explain the very shape of the universe. In certain circles, this is considered to be a remarkable thing. In certain circles, Perelman should be a god.
What he should not be doing is living in a cockroach-infested apartment with his mum, shunning his career and maths and personal hygiene – becoming a hermit who turned down the million-dollar prize for cracking a puzzle that had some of the best minds in the world stumped. Not even Elsie, who geeks out over bizarre medical stories, appreciates the magnitude of this.
I read an article about Perelman in a journal over the summer. Strangely, that was around the time my panic attacks began.
I so should not have mentioned any of this to my parents. Because now, the curriculum of my final year of high school – on the school counsellor’s recommendation, after consultation with my mum and dad – includes year-twelve Drama.
It’s supposed to be ‘cathartic’.
It’s supposed to help my ‘current mental state’ by forcing me to do something that ‘lies outside my skill set’.
It’s supposed to be ‘fun’.
So instead of using my free time for useful things, like sleeping, or actually trying to solve the Riemann hypothesis, I have to stand on stage in the dilapidated Arts building, pretending to be a tree while trying desperately to emote.
Elsie taps her pen on the desk, snapping my focus. ‘You’re okay, Rey,’ she mutters. I think it’s a statement, not a question.
I close my eyes, and I breathe. I am okay. But I’m supposed to be more than okay.
I am supposed to be extraordinary.